HOWTO: Graphical Port Blocker for Linux (A la PeerGuardian)

For those of you that run linux, and have been clamoring for an easy way to use blocklists like if you were using PeerGuardian for windows, this is a simple howto on how to do it.

Install the iplist package (which comes with the IPblock GUI) from here: sourceforge

The application will install to Applications -> Internet -> IPblock
Or, you can run it via terminal in GUI mode thusly:

sudo ipblock -g

Which will give you this window:


Simply hit the enable button to run things in default mode. If you want a bit more control, you can go to the Lists view:


And select what lists you want. By default it includes all these shown. These are the lists generated by the much loved/hated www.bluetack.co.uk people. I'll leave it to you to do the research on weither or not you want to use these guys. Suffice to say they are the most popular list crew right now.

As for settings:

I'd ensure that autostart is checked, as well as incoming and outgoing connections. The rest are up to you and fairly self explainatory.

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That being said, if, like me, you run your linux box as a headless torrent client you can run ipblock like so:

chris@ubuShock:~$ sudo ipblock
IPblock 0.18
Copyright (C) 2007 Serkan Sakar 

Usage: ipblock [options]

Options:
-s     start blocking
-d     stop blocking
-r     restart IPblock
-u     update lists
-c     convert lists to ipl format
-g     start IPblock GUI
-l     show status
-v     show version and exit
-h     show this help
chris@ubuShock:~$ sudo ipblock -s
chris@ubuShock:~$

It won't give any confirmation, but you can check to make sure it is working with

sudo ipblock -l

Happy downloading!

If it worked for you, please drop me a comment. Oh - And click my ads?

Disclaimer: Naturally, I do not condone downloading things illegally. If you download copywritted work, you are breaking the law. You should support the publishers of the works you are downloading.